I wait down in the hallway with Maxine, the daughter-in-law, as Enid descends on the stairlift, footplate up, legs pendant.
‘That’s the way to make an entrance!’ I say. ‘All you need is a little pair of angel wings…’
But I’ve misjudged my audience. Enid returns my smile with a level of contempt one point shy of King Lear. She covers the last three steps in icy silence, and comes to a juddering, beeping halt.
‘Shall I help with the belt?’ says Maxine, coming forwards with a duck of the head like she’s running in to meet a helicopter.
‘Tsch tsch!’ says Enid, batting her away.
‘The lounge, d’you think?’
‘Hmm.’
I go on ahead and line-up with Maxine by the patio window as Enid hobbles in with her stick, turning round a couple of times in front of her armchair before settling herself slowly and magnificently, stick planted squarely between her legs, hands draped on the carved head.
‘They rang last night, you know’ she says.
‘Who did?’
‘The hip people.’
‘Oh?’
‘They wanted to know why I hadn’t returned the questionnaire. I said It’s nine o’clock at night! What on earth do you mean, ringing me at this hour?’
‘It does seem rather late…’
‘Rather late? It’s the middle of the night. I said Questionnaire? I’ll be speaking to your Chief Executive, never mind filling in a twopenny halfpenny questionnaire. The trouble I’ve had! They said We can fit you in on Friday. I said we’re talking about a hip replacement, not putting the car in for a service. Have you had a cancellation? No, he said. We don’t work like that. It’s all very organised. It doesn’t sound very organised I said. But like a fool I agreed. Well – (she stamped her stick). I thought if I said no I’d be pushed to the back of the queue. I’d never get the damned thing done. But let me tell you something. That was the worst decision of my entire life! There must have been a dozen of us, packed in like fish in a canning factory. Nurses running around. I say nurses. I think there was one actual nurse. The rest were pretend nurses, the kind that seem to make up the numbers these days. You cannot be serious I said. You’re not proposing to do us all in one day? Absolutely he said. We run a pretty tight ship. Do you? I said. Well – that’s interesting I said. You do know that’s what they said about the Titanic?’

The front door stands open enough to allow for the power cord leading from the electric buggy out on the front path to the power socket in the hall. I worry what’ll happen if it rains, but Mr Barry seems relaxed about that.
‘That’s just how I do it,’ he says, batting away the prospect of electrocution with a wave of his hand. ‘Take a seat.’

On the face of it you’d think Mr Barry was busy, sitting at the table like this, carefully rummaging through a Tupperware container of meds, drawing things out, pressing them to his nose to see what they are, putting them back again. But he’s surrounded by such a jumble – letters, appointment cards, notes from various people, delivery bills from the local Chinese restaurant held together with a clothes peg – I don’t think he’s made much headway in the last twenty years.
‘I was only discharged from the hospital a couple of hours ago,’ he says, as if that explains it.
It’s clear to see that Mr Barry, soon to be ninety, by slow and steady increments, unrecognised by himself but recognised only too painfully by his neighbours, has wandered off course somewhat, and ended up in a sad zone of neglect. There’s a unifying crust of greasy dust across everything, and the wallpaper, carefully aligned and pasted up years ago, has steadily lifted at the joins and begun rolling down at the corners. Even the light from outside seems hesitant, coming in only as far as absolutely necessary, keeping its beams slightly up from the carpet.
‘How about I make you a cup of tea before I start?’
‘That would be lovely,’ he says. ‘You’ll find some milk in the fridge. It should be all right.’

The kitchen is the worst place in the house so far. I feel like Howard Carter breaking into Tutankhamun’s tomb, if the priests had been a little short on money and inspiration, buried The Boy King in a detached house sometime in the Fifties, tried to fix the strip light with packing tape, given up, stuffed the royal mummy in an old fridge, and then randomly filled the room with newspapers, sprouting onions, junk mail, half a dozen boxes of Weetos and a chipped dog bowl.

I scrub out a mug as best I can, hunt down a passable tea bag, and risk turning the kettle on. I don’t even have to sniff the milk; when I tip it slightly to take it out of the fridge, the level stays put.
‘Milk’s off,’ I say, going back in to the sitting room. Mr Barry has turned his attention from his meds to the discharge summary that came home with him.
‘Impossible,’ he says, and then tears the summary into four pieces and drops it on the floor.
‘I’ll nip out and get you fresh.’
‘Would you? That’s kind. Here – take some money.’
‘No, no. I think I can stand you the price of milk.’
‘I insist,’ he says, and fishing around in the pocket of his cardigan, he pulls out a glass spice jar. ‘Take it out of that,’ he says.
I give it a shake. At a guess I’d say there’s about twenty pence in ones and twos.
‘Thanks!’ I say, and discreetly putting it on the side, squeeze out of the front door.

It’s great to be outside again, everything so wonderfully sharp and clean. Even the clouds look as if they’ve been freshly laundered and pegged out to dry. But even so, I can’t help thinking as I stride along, saying hello to people in an emphatically social way, feeling full of energy and potential, that, bracing as the weather is today, and picturesque as those clouds might be, streaming overhead, if I had to bet on it, I’d say that come evening, it’s almost certain to rain.

Charlie had a fall a few days ago, but despite the pain in his back he seems pretty sanguine. Until I ask him if he has any family living nearby who might be able to help with the shopping.
‘No,’ he says. ‘I don’t. Not any more. I used to have a son. But he died.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘It was a long time ago. Fifty years or more. I still get upset when I think about it. They say Time’s a great healer, but I don’t know. It feels like yesterday.
‘He must have been young when he died.’
‘Eighteen. Coming up.’
‘What was it? Cancer?’
‘Nah. He was murdered.’
‘Murdered? Oh my God!’
‘He was such a good, kind boy, too. So bright and helpful. Everybody said so. He was just one of those people who didn’t have any sharp corners. Do you know what I mean? He’d always put himself out for you, never mind what it was. He’d give you the shirt off his back if you said you liked it. When he was taken, all my faith in the world just up and left. It was like my future had been snatched away and left me with nothing. They may as well have killed me, too.’
‘So what happened?’
‘The funny thing was, everyone kept telling me He’s too quiet. You should let him go out in the world, find his own feet. I shouldn’t have listened. But I did. He started going out a lot, staying out. And he fell in with a bit of a rough crowd. I didn’t like the look of them much, but he said they weren’t as bad as all that. He always did see the good in people. And anyway he was having an adventure. Next thing I know, he’d gone to a party one weekend, and that was that. That was the last I saw of him. He just disappeared. I was frantic, y’know? But no-one had seen hide nor hair of him. I went through the motions reporting him gone and everything, but nothing happened. Anyway, about a year later there was a knock on the door and when I open it there were these two guys in black suits standing there. We’re from the Coroner’s Office they said. And d’you know what I said? I said No thank you. Not today. I didn’t know what a coroner was! I thought they’d come round to sell me insurance or something. Can we come in? they said. It’s about your son. So I let them in, and the first one, he goes over to the mantelpiece, picks up a picture of Ronnie and he holds it up, and he says Is this your son? So I says Yes. And he nods at the other guy, and he says Well in that case, Mr Franklin, we’re sorry to have to tell you that your son has died. His body had turned up in a disused parking lot, stripped of everything, his wallet, his clothes, his shoes, the lot. No-one knew who he was. He was in a bit of a state, and of course, he’d never been to the dentist in his life, so they didn’t even have that. But they tracked me down somehow. And d’you know what? The worst thing about it – I think it was the worst thing – is this little, throwaway thing one of them said. He said We think he probably died of a heart attack, and there are signs of a serious assault, but it’s impossible to say which came first, the heart attack or the assault. And that’s bothered me more than anything. It kind of flips over and over in my head. Because I don’t know what’s worse – someone who’d beat you up leave you to die, or someone who’d watch you die and then beat you up. I mean – why would anyone do that?’
‘I don’t know. It’s a terrible thing.’
‘It is a terrible thing. Which came first? Fifty years, and I still don’t know what it means.’

‘But dash it all! We haven’t even been introduced!’
I shake Ken’s hand, for the fifth time.
‘I’m Jim. From the hospital. How d’you do?’
‘Jim, you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘Welcome, Jim!’
‘Thank you!’
‘Now – Jim. Can you tell me something?’
‘Of course.’
‘Why am I here?’
‘Well – this is your home, Ken.’
‘Yes – but why am I here?’
‘This is the best place to look after you.’
‘If you say so,’ he says, leaning back in the chair, suddenly unimpressed with the whole affair.
He watches me unpack my kit.
‘What are you proposing to do now?’ he says.
‘Take your blood pressure and temperature and what have you. If that’s okay.’
‘Be my guest!’ he says, waving a hand in the air. ‘It’s all the same to me.’
‘Thanks!’
His live-in carer Yasmina comes in with a tray of tea.
‘You want different war film on, Ken?’
‘Do what, y’say?’
It’s Where Eagles Dare, the bit where Clint Eastwood knocks on the door of the radio room, says hello and then shoots everyone in it. The TVs up loud anyway, but with the machine gun and the AAAIIIIGH screams, I’m wincing and flinching as much as Clint.
‘Some war film different to this one,’ shouts Yasmina, going over to switch it off. ‘You’ve seen this one too many time, Ken. All the Germans they are killt by now.’
The way she says killt – somehow even more emphatic for the severely sculpted lines of her makeup.
‘As you wish’ he says.
‘Look. I have new one for you, Ken. World at War. You like World at War?’
‘Spoiler alert. We win!’ I say.
‘What means, we win?’ says Yasmina, kneeling down to operate the DVD player, poking one finger through the hole, drawing Where Eagles Dare out like a donut, switching it with the other, jolting the DVD tray back into place and hitting the right sequence of buttons on the control, all in one fluid movement.
‘The war. We won the war.’
‘Which?’
‘I don’t know. Either. Both. I think.’
‘Oh. This is good news.’
She turns to Ken.
‘Ken! We won war!’
He frowns at her, then at me, and then smiling, reaches out his hand.
‘But dash it all! We haven’t even been introduced!’
The sepulchral tones of the World at War theme tune begin to play.
‘Great,’ says Yasmina, standing up and brushing the front of her uniform down. ‘Now I have this song in my head all day.’

‘I don’t believe in washing-up liquid. It’s a western bourgeois chemical fallacy. It’s a myth, darling, to make you buy more crap.’
‘What do you use to clean up with, then?’
‘Water, like the rest of the planet. And they’re okay. Don’t you think?’
‘Sort of. Some of them.’
‘I don’t need much for breakfast. Can you cut the skin off the apple? That’s the fruit’s lifejacket. That’s the thing that soaks up the toxins. Quarter it up and put it with the banana. Thanks, darling. There’s some natural yogurt in the fridge. Two spoons of that would be wonderful. And two glasses of water. Down there on the floor where I can reach it.’

He moans softly whilst I work. It’s  hard to resist the idea he’s doing it for my benefit, to illustrate how ill he is, but he really doesn’t need to. Anyone could see he was mortally ill, his flesh shrink-wrapped to the frame in that brutally anatomical way some cancers have.

‘I’ve got someone coming round later,’ he says. ‘An old lady friend of mine. From Thailand.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘She rang me up. She said I can’t believe you’re still alive, you old bastard. She’s fantastic, darling. Very educated.’
‘Staying long?’
‘As long as it takes.’
He winks, in such a stagey way I wouldn’t be surprised to see a caption.
‘Is she going to be helping? You know – with meals and what have you?’
‘What have you?’ he says, adjusting his position in the chair. ‘Well – darling. If by what have you you’re  talking about a world-class blowjob, then – yes, what have you…’
And he winks again, and takes the bowl of quartered apple, banana and yogurt in both hands, with his eyes closed, and a ceremonial nod.

‘You won’t find a vein.’
‘Let’s have a look’
‘I should know my own body, darling. I’ve done enough drugs in my time. I’ve stuck needles in just about every place you could mention. My arm, my hand, my foot, my groin.. I melted some LSD and shot it in my neck.’
‘In your neck?’
‘To get more of a trip.’
‘Where in the neck?’
‘The jugular. What a ride, man. It blew me off the planet.’
‘I bet. Where d’you wake up? Venus?’
‘Somewhere like that. Croydon, I think it was.’

Mr and Mrs Kay are sitting waiting for me, Captain and Commander style in two high-back chairs in the fullest blast of sunshine in the conservatory, a place so intensely hot you could probably fire porcelain. Despite the heat, they’re both wearing heavy-knit fisherman’s jumpers, Mr Kay with the addition of a blazer, a Fun with Knots t-towel tucked in his front as an extemporary napkin, and on his head, a baseball cap emblazoned with the name of USS something-or-other, a silhouette of the ship underneath the name and a couple of golden sprays on the peak.
‘Thank you so much for coming,’ he says. ‘Do please have a seat.’
Mrs Kay leans round her husband slightly, to get a better look.
‘Now. Tell me. What is your mission here?’ says Mr Kay. He has a long and lugubrious face, and the habit of slightly dropping his jaw and sucking in his cheeks when he’s finished speaking, like a man accustomed to asking serious questions, and then waiting to consider the serious reply.
‘Let me explain,’ says Mr Kay Jnr, striding into the conservatory. He’s a man of seventy himself,  but trim and active, and only slightly rubbed around the edges.
‘My parents have been doing remarkably well these last few years,’ he says, pulling up a chair. ‘… considering their advanced years. Thoroughly independent. Bloody-minded is another way of putting it…’
‘What’s he saying?’ says Mrs Kay, tugging her husband’s blazer.
‘Speak up, Daniel!’ says Mr Kay.
‘I was just saying to Jim how well you’re doing.’
‘Well?’ says Mr Kay, closing his eyes momentarily and then straightening a little. ‘Of course, Daniel. What else is there?’
He leans towards his wife, still keeping his hands on the arms of his chair and his face to the front, to share the moment. And even though I don’t think Mrs Kay has heard or understood, she shakes her head sadly, and closes her eyes, and folds her hands in her lap.

The last time I saw John he was crashing backwards through that kitchen door, sweating and swearing, two full carrier bags of shopping on either arm. It was last summer. We’d been called out to help his wife Agnes, struggling to cope with a persistent chest infection, diabetes and advanced dementia. We did what we could to support them both at home, but one thing led to another – a banal but brutal cliché – and despite everyone’s best efforts, Agnes died in hospital.

If it wasn’t for the address, the tattoos and his bracingly direct way of talking, I’d hardly recognise John at all. Cancer has invaded his body as vigorously and comprehensively as the brambles I can see through the kitchen window, overwhelming the garden. And it follows on so closely from Agnes’ death, it’s hard to resist that other cliché, that it’s not exactly cancer he’s dying of, but a broken heart.

As part of the visit I need to assess the status of his pressure areas. When he’s managed to stand, I help him unclip his braces and lower his trousers.
‘Mind how you go there!’ he says. ‘I don’t want you tearing the tubing out of my knob. That’s the last thing I need.’
It looks like everything’s okay for the moment, but it won’t be long before he needs more than simply a padded cushion and a zimmer frame. We’ll have to think about arranging for a hospital bed, and all the nursing and other care needs to go with it.
‘Whatever you think, squire,’ he says, snapping the jaws of his braces shut again. ‘Mind you. This cushion’s getting a bit crusty. Maybe we should change it for something else. Tell you what. Why don’t I chisel off the worst of the crud, then we could do sommat’ else with it.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know – put it in a raffle.’
He sits down again and I carry on with the assessment.
‘You wouldn’t think to look at me, Jim, but I used to be a builder.’
‘That’s a hard game.’
‘Nah! Not when you know what you’re about.’
‘What did you build?’
‘Me? Anything you like. Houses. The lot.’
‘I wouldn’t know where to start, building a house.’
‘It’s easy. You get some land. You do some drawings. You get a machine, and you dig out your trench for the foundation. Then you fill your trench with concrete, level it off, put the bricks round it and there you go. House. Job done.’

There doesn’t seem to be a number eleven in this row of Victorian town houses. Number nine’s a hotel; number thirteen, apartments, and between the two, a battered, solid door in distressed brown paint, no handle, letterbox or anything to suggest it might be the entrance to an active place of residence. There is an intercom button, though, tucked away on the left – a simple choice between flat and office. The information I’ve been given is Flat Four – which makes me think something must be wrong. I ring the number I’ve been given, but there’s no reply, so I go back to my car to check with the office.
It’s such a beautiful morning, I use the bonnet as an extemporary desk, and whilst I’m waiting for a reply, look out over the communal gardens in the centre of the square. It’s only then I notice an elderly man studying me just the other side of the hedge.
‘Are you looking for the museum?’
I hang up and move nearer.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Is that number nine?’
He frowns severely.
‘I’m from the hospital,’ I explain. When that doesn’t work, I add: ‘What museum?’
‘Oh, he’s been at it for years!’ he says, as dismissively as if he were describing a burrowing animal rather than the founder of a museum. Then he thrusts his hands into his pockets, puffs out his chest and tips back on his heels, as if he’d explained everything, and that was that.
‘Does anyone actually live there?’ I ask.
‘Right at the top!’ he says. ‘Old Bartleby. Give him my regards, if you see him.’
‘I will. Thanks.’
When I’m walking back to the front door I realise I didn’t ask the man’s name. When I turn to wave, he’s still standing there. I get the impression he’s as much a fixture as the statue in the middle of the square, so identifying him to Old Mr B shouldn’t be a problem.
I ring the buzzer marked ‘Flat’ and after a long wait, long enough to turn and wave twice to the man in the gardens, the lock activates and I push the door open.

You would think the place had been abandoned sometime around eighteen forty. Everything inside, all the woodwork and interior glazing, the lamplights on the walls, the fussy plasterwork high overhead – everything looks original and untouched. The only new feature would seem to be a tall, card model of the house standing just inside the lobby door, an arrow pointing at a slot in the roof, saying Donations.
Everything is dark, locked up. After calling ahead, I start climbing the bare-board stairs.
On the first landing is a dusty ottoman in Egyptian style, on the second, a tailor’s dummy dressed in a brocade dress and ostrich feather hat, and so on up and up through to the very top of the house, where there’s a heavy red rope barring access, and just beyond it, a door marked with the number four, and a plaque marked private.

I hook the rope aside, knock on the door, and go through.

The man in the square was right about Mr Bartleby. He is old – as old as the house, it would be easy to think – and yet, so thoroughly independent and self-contained he must surely qualify as a natural wonder, as worthy of a visit as any of the exhibits below him in the museum. It feels as if he’s keeping himself and the entire house upright by sheer force of will. You can see it in his eyes when he smiles, like looking into the windows of a furnace and seeing the clear, blue flames deep within, animating the machine.
‘Oh – this is just a hobby,’ he says, his voice as delicate as the china cup he sips from. ‘A folly, if you will. I was actually a psychiatrist for many years. I used to love leading the group sessions. They were so interesting.’
He replaces the cup on the saucer, without a sound.
‘They’re all dead now, of course,’ he says. ‘All except one. Now and again the phone will ring and I’ll hear her mournful voice on the other end…’
He reaches forwards, puts the cup and saucer on the table, then leans back again and folds his hands in his lap.
‘But it’s nice to be remembered,’ he says.

I don’t remember ever seeing these gas holders full. The cylinders are permanently down, just the bare structure standing. A fancy roost for starlings come evening, or today – the anchor for a long piece of ragged plastic sheeting that’s become snagged on a support and trails out in the wind, rustling and snapping overhead.

Jean lives in a tidy little terraced house just the other side of the road. Her neighbour Jerry lets me in. He’s a stocky, purposeful man in jeans and a low-slung tool-belt, his Reactolite glasses as yellowed as his moustache. He looks like a DIY sheriff, taking care of business.
‘She’s resting in the front room,’ he says, centering his glasses with one finger (and I’m sure if he’d have been wearing a hat, he’d have tipped that, too). ‘If you want me I’ll be in the kitchen.’
He saunters away.

Jean is sitting propped up on cushions in a chair by the window. When she smiles, the corners of her mouth push out deeply incised lines in her cheeks, and her eyes glitter in their sockets.
‘Sorry I’m a fright,’ she says. ‘I just feel all used up, you know? I don’t have the energy for anything.’
She tells me the story – how she’d gradually become unwell a few months ago, how she’d lost her sense of taste, gone off her food, and the weight had simply fallen off. The tests the doctor ordered hadn’t shown anything. There was no explanation for it. They’d tried a few things, but none of them worked. They were all scratching their heads. Meanwhile, she wasn’t getting any better.
I explain why she’s been referred to us, what we can do to help, the equipment, the care calls, the monitoring of her basic obs whilst the doctors come up with a plan.
‘It means another blood sample, I’m afraid,’ I say, unzipping my rucksack.
‘Be my guest. If you can find any.’
Jerry comes in and stands in the doorway, wiping his hands on a dirty t-towel.
‘All right?’ he says.
‘I don’t know, Jerry,’ she sighs. ‘Maybe I need a new set of batteries.’
‘Yeah? Well – I’m happy to fit them if you show me where they go.’